My scenario:

I'm using Scriptaculous and CF8 to create a "stacked" PDF based on a user's re-ordering of a list of uploaded files (you can check out the live app here). In order to do this simply, I'm making the file name part of the sortable list item's ID value, like so: ID="file~#filename#" . Well, Scriptaculous has a built in way of dealing with sortable item ID values, where it's looking for some text followed by an underscore followed by a numeric value. In order to break away from this assumption, the latest version of Scriptaculous (1.8.2) offers an option called "format" that allows you to specify a regular expression to override the default one.

So, here's my code that creates the unordered list of files:

and here's the JS I use to turn this list into a sortable:

Executing the following JS will show you that the regex is correct:

Not hard stuff, but it took me a while to piece it all together so I thought I'd share in case it saves someone else a little time.

I can't tell you how excited I was last night when I saw the previews for South Park and saw that the Disney Channel and the Jonas Brothers had found their way into the crosshairs of the South Park writers! I myself have been a long time HATER of the Disney Channel, despising its infinitely flowing pre-pubescent stream of sickening, mind numbing garbage that's as incoherent and directionless as the pre-pubescent kids who are addicted to sucking on Walt Disney's grotesque lactating channel. And so I savored every single moment of last night's South Park, shouting out as many "hoo RAH"s and "YEAH!"s as laughter.

If you didn't catch it, let me summarize it for you.

Micky Mouse is a tyrannical mobster who turns larval human beings (teenagers) into icons and idols for girls and boys who are aware that they have genitals but don't quite know what they're for just yet. He gives the closet liberals an excuse to let the TV babysit their children by coating the adolescent inuendos, potentially compromising boy-girl scenes, and "near kiddie porn" with a thin layer of "just say no". In this scenario, Micky has groomed the Jonas Brothers to get the little girls' vaginas all tingly, only to turn around and encourage those same confusedly horny pupal girls to take vows of chastity until their wedding night. The Idiot Brothers try to take a stand against Mobster Mouse only to be beaten down like the skanky ho's they are, until Micky accidentally reveals his true objectives to the general public and is rejected...at least until the closet liberals have had a night to think it over or just plain forget what they heard.

Disney, please just die.

Doug out.

Okay, this is just too cool so I thought I'd share it.

Let's say you have access to a database on a remote server somewhere, and there's data there that you would love to have a copy of locally. Options, options, options...well, if we aren't using SQL Express we have lots of options for migrating the data. But in our case, we ARE using SQL Express, so we don't have easy access to linking servers and other more advanced commands. Wouldn't it be just perfect then if we could simply do a SELECT * INTO MyNewLocalTable from [remote table]? Turns out that I CAN if I turn on an option that is turned off by default. So first, I execute these two lines in a query window (I'm using SQL Server Management Studio Express):

Then, I execute THIS query (well, one like it with suitable values substituted):

Worked like a charm! Now I have a local copy of the remote data. In my case I migrated a little over 80,000 rows and it took about a minute or less. Saweeeet.

Doug out.